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Los Angeles, California (CNN) -- About 70 students avoided arrest early Sunday morning when they surrendered the administration building they had occupied for nearly four days at the University of California-Santa Cruz, according to a school spokesman.
Angry students took over Kerr Hall after the University of California's regents board approved a 32 percent increase in tuition Thursday.
The occupation at UC Santa Cruz is one of several demonstrations across University of California campuses in the past week.
University officials said the $505 million to be raised by the tuition increase is needed to prevent even deeper cuts than those already made due to California's persistent financial crisis.
Protesting students said the hike will hurt working- and middle-class students.
The first phase of the increase, which takes effect in January, will raise undergraduate tuition to $8,373. The second phase kicks in next fall, raising tuition to $10,302, said university spokeswoman Leslie Sepuka.
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Students Shut Down UCLA
Yesterday and today, thousands of students effectively shut down the UCLA campus in protest of the UC Regents approval of a massive 32% tuition hike. Thousands more launched strikes at UC Berkeley, UC Irvine, UC Riverside and UC Santa Cruz. Just a day before, CSU students, led by ANSWER and Students Fight Back organizers, confronted police and CSU officials at the Board of Trustees meeting in Long Beach.
ANSWER sent out a message to come to the Southern California Regional Socialism Conference this Saturday to discuss the student struggle, hear eyewitness reports from student and faculty organizers and to discuss what's next for this dynamic and growing movement, on the Los Angeles City College Campus, in the Chemistry Building, from 10am-5pm. ANSWER asks people to be there to join the fight for education rights and for a better world, and support the student struggle for education.
CSU students demanded to attend the Board of Trustees meeting in Long Beach on Tuesday, Nov. 17. They chanted loudly and pounded on the doors after being met with a line of police.
Students and faculty are in motion. At UCLA, banners against the hikes and for students' rights are hanging from nearly every building. Students are occupying buildings, demanding a rollback of the cuts and a cancellation of the hikes. Police have attacked the students at the behest of the school, but the students are unbowed. Right now, hundreds are linking arms to prevent the criminal Regents from leaving their meeting place.
ANSWER members are participating in the actions, as students, as organizers, and as faculty members.
UCLA professor Susan Curtiss told ANSWER from the front lines of the struggle, "I stand in complete solidarity with the students. Students are occupying the building where I teach. This is what needs to happen. We have to support the struggle for affordable education. Education is not a privilege, it is a right!"
In fact in other industrialized nations education is a right. Students go to college for free or for small fees. How other countries fund their university students | Politics | The Guardian
France
The higher education system is mainly public, which means that the tuition fees are almost fully funded by the state and students have to pay only a small fee.
Sweden
Higher education is free for all, tuition fees are not allowed, and university funding is met by the goverment. There is a system of student grants which meet roughly a third of living costs and then loans for the remainder of costs. Both loans and grants are subject to an income test of the student but not of their parents.
Australia
Introduced in 1989, the higher education contribution scheme (HECS) is a system where students contribute to the costs of their education with interest free deferred payment arrangements.
You can repay in various ways, either upfront with a 25% discount, or paying part and deferring the rest, or deferring it all. You must start repaying when your income reaches the minimum threshold for compulsory repayment, which in 2001-02 was $23,242 (£8,576).
Youth allowance provides income support based on a student's personal and/or family circumstances.
